


Four fights Cyrenacia Sidonia Romney Haðraaða ov Brakespeare and Juliet Buchanan Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca made up from, and one for which they never got the chance

by jadelennox



Category: Flora Segunda - Wilce
Genre: 5 Things, Best Friends, Female Friendship, Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 18:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/pseuds/jadelennox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Fine. Play with Hotspur.  But leave him alone when we're married and I want him back in <em>one piece</em>, you hear me?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four fights Cyrenacia Sidonia Romney Haðraaða ov Brakespeare and Juliet Buchanan Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca made up from, and one for which they never got the chance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lessthanpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lessthanpie/gifts).



> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/)  
> This work by jadelennox is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/).

**Year 824: **

"Fiking scit, that brat is following us around again. Do something about it, would you, Murdoch?"

Seven years old and already prissy, Juliet Buchanan Fyrdraaca thrust her chin forward mulishly. "You said a bad word. You said _two_ bad words."

Murdoch Oset, resplendent in lavender velvet, tossed his corkscrew curls and shook his finger at Juliet. "Look, you Fyrdraaca toadlet --" He was cut off by his own patron shoving him to the side.

"Don't you preach to me, you little Fyrdraaca scit," said Tiny Doom, her hands on her hips. "This outing is for fourth graders only. No little kids." She took two steps forward, threateningly, but Juliet didn't retreat. Tiny Doom was impressed despite herself; even Paimon quailed when Tiny Doom was angry.

"You know you aren't allowed to smoke at Sanctuary School," said Juliet. "Archangel Bob will have you flayed."

"How did you know --" began Murdoch, but once again his beloved Tiny Doom cut him off.

"We aren't on the grounds of Sanctuary School now," she said. She raised one eyebrow meaningfully, in a gesture she had been practicing in front of the mirror for weeks, and pointed to the hole in the hedge through which Juliet had followed them.

The girl furrowed her brow, which ought to look stupid on someone that young but really, Tiny Doom thought, was supercute. "But you are _supposed_ to be," she said. "So it still counts."

_Fyrdraacas_, thought Tiny Doom, in amused disgust. "If they'd meant for the rule to be No Smoking When You Are Supposed to Be at Sanctuary School," she said, "they would have made the rule actually say No Smoking When You Are Supposed to Be at Sanctuary School. Clearly, since that's not the rule, that's not what they meant."

Juliet was already taller than Tiny Doom, but her little seven-year-old face looked ridiculous when contorted by serious thought. Tiny Doom drove home her point. "All the best fighters in Benica Barracks smoke," she said. "So does Hardhands. I should know."

Juliet bit her lip, then nodded her head sharply as she came to a decision. She reached out and tried to snap her fingers. "Gimme."

"What!" Murdoch shrieked, but Tiny Doom ignored him. She was bored of him anyway.

"Here you go," she said, passing the pack of Madama Twanky's Coffin Nail cigarillos to Juliet. She grinned, and Juliet grinned back.

* * *

  
**Year 832:**

"Stay away from Hotspur," hissed Buck. "He's engaged to _me_."

"Fike you," said Tiny Doom, without heat, tossing kilts one after the other onto her canopied bed. "Why don't I have anything to fiking wear? And you don't want him. Pigface, you're still just a kid. You wouldn't even know what to do with him if you got him. Whereas I," she continued, pausing in her wardrobe-ransacking to throw an arch look Buck's way. "I know exactly what to do with him. _Exactly_." She leered.

Buck snapped her heels together and stood at attention as she'd been doing all too often since she entered Benica Barracks, but with her chin thrust forward she looked like nothing so much as the prissy seven-year-old she'd been. "You have your own husband. What you want with mine?"

Tiny Doom pensively examined a kilt embroidered with hot pink flowers, then tossed it onto the pile with the rest. "I'll trade," she said. "You can have Hardhands, and I'll keep Hotspur." She looked up in time to catch Buck's horrified look. "Yes, exactly," she said, suddenly irritated. "Count yourself lucky that you are engaged to a man, not a monster." Buck's glare didn't return; her expression was positively melting into sympathy. Tiny Doom couldn't help but push it. "And such a squirrely _handsome_ dollymop lovey Hotspur is, too. His chest muscles make me feel so deliciously _wriggly_ \-- ow!"

Laughing, Tiny Doom ducked Buck's second blow. She reached up and caught Buck's wrist. "Ayah, you Fyrdraacas will be the end of House Haðraaða in the end!" Still laughing, she twisted Buck's arm behind her back in one of Nini Mo's moves. "Give over, brat, do."

"Go to the Birdies," said Buck.

"Ayah, don't be like that. I don't want to steal your Hotspur, just borrow him for a time. And it's not like you're using him just now, right?" A despicable note of pleading had crept into her voice. Haðraaðas did not plead, but she'd give the lucious mancandy back if Buck insisted, and then what would she do? Stay at home with her husband like a good girl? As if. She let go of Buck's wrist.

"Pigface, Cyrenacia," sighed Buck, sitting on the bed. "I need to get in those training sessions of yours." She rubbed her wrist, then sighed again. "Fine. Play with Hotspur. But leave him alone when we're married and I want him back in _one piece_, you hear me?"

Delighted, Tiny Doom grabbed Buck's face in both hands and planted a big wet kiss on her forhead, leaving behind the imprint of her aquamarine lip rouge. "You're a darling, Buck. Now let Paimon bring you a new frock coat from the Wardrobe. You look like Corporal de Hielo in that stodgy old thing."  


* * *

  
**Year 837: **

Tiny Doom, resplendent in her new Colonel's bicorn, leaned against the enormous oak and laughed.

"Dueling at my wedding, Cyrenacia? Seriously?" Buck's scorn dripped heavily from each word.

"Fiking hells, you're being a snapperhead about one tiny wee sword fight with the Infanta's nurse," she said, but her eyes weren't on Buck. Over Buck's shoulder she could see Hotspur smoking congratulatory cigarillos with the Warlord. He shone in his Alacrán Regimentals, the gorgeous sangyn frock coat and kilt, the polished black boots that looked so squirm-inducingly fierce, the sangyn Flail wig. His pink-cheeked happiness glowed through his white pancake makeup. Or was that alcohol? It was worth no nevermind whichever it was, because now he was Reverdy Anacreon Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca, and she was still Cyrenacia Sidonia Romney Haðraaða ov Brakespeare, and there was nothing for it but blasted upchucking sparkling scit.

"Cyrenacia!" snapped Buck, and Tiny Doom leaned forward and wrapped her arm soberly around Buck's shoulder. Or semi-soberly, anyway. There were seven South of the Slot Zombie Blasts between Tiny Doom and where she'd left sobriety. But she was a Haðraaða of house Haðraaða, and if she couldn't walk a straight line and command a beserker charge when out of her gourd with rum and heartbreak, she'd eat her own bicorn.

"No more dueling, I promise!" she said. "Come on, let's go get some enchiladas."

* * *

  
**Year 846: **

"You told me you would leave Hotspur alone," Buck spat.

Inside, Tiny Doom quailed. If Buck didn't forgive her for this... but dare, win, or disappear, right? She twirled in her tangerine war kilt, pasting on an insouciant expression. "Oh, la, Buck. You were so very --" She held both hands in front of her tiny tum, rounding them in front of her. "A man has needs, no matter how vomity and swollen-ankled his wife."

"His _pregnant_ wife." Buck's glare could melt lead.

"So be angry at darling Hotspur," Tiny Doom tossed off. "He's the one who broke vows."

"Do you think I'll take that drivel wrapped up in bows like a little giftie?" asked Buck. "You made vows, too, Azota. You promised me you'd stop touching him when he married." The luminous fury in Buck's eyes made her glow like an egregore of the ninth order, and Tiny Doom could not, would not lose her oldest friend.

"Sweet sweet Bannie made vows, too --" she began, and Buck cut her off, cold and harsh.

"Don't you _dare_ compare Hotspur to Hardhands," she said. It was impossible that Buck should look so threatening lying back in her bed in her ragged pink nighty, with her unwashed hair in frizzes all over the pillow.

"That's not what I mean," said Tiny Doom. "I just meant that I am bound by my vows, and so I rage against them. Sometimes the shrapnel hits the people closest to me." She should be ashamed of being so manipulative, but she knew that Buck had never yet stood up against the "poor me, I am married to the Warlord's Fist" defense. Sure enough, Buck stopped raging. She didn't smile, though, or squeeze Tiny Doom's hand and tell her she was forgiven. She just pressed her lips together and turned her face to the wall.

"Oh, drat," said Tiny Doom. "Buck, this should be your day, and I keep ruining it. Look what you _made_, and stop thinking about me."

Slowly, Buck turned back toward Tiny Doom, where she sat by the gorgeous cradle all carved with hounds and fans. Even wrinkled and brand-new, the bundle in the cradle looked gorgeous, her tiny head covered with blonde fuzz.

"I made that," said Buck, in tones of awe.

"You and Hotspur," said Tiny Doom, thinking that Buck was a fool to think Tiny Doom posed any threat at all. "Look, Flora," she cooed at the baby. "Look at Auntie Cyrenacia. Maybe when you're older I will let you play with my Pig."

* * *

  
**Year 853: **

"This is the stupidest plan in a lifetime of colossally stupid plans, Azota. If you go back, the Birdies will catch you. If they catch you, you'll pray for them to let you die."

Tiny Doom was too tired for this fight. Having the baby had been like passing a watermelon, and she just wanted to sleep until Califa shook off the earth into the sea. "If I don't go back, Hotspur will die."

Buck had her most impenetrable military face on. "Hotspur will die no matter what you do. Xholto wants to eat his heart himself."

"Thanks for the pep talk, Buck," Tiny Doom said, closing her eyes.

"I'm trying to knock some sense into you, woman!" Buck shouted, as only Tiny Doom could make her shout. "Do you want to die just when this babe needs you the most?"

Tiny Doom snorted. "You are thousands of times better a mother than I could ever be, and you know it. Look at Idden."

"Look at Flora," replied Buck, and Tiny Doom's heart found another unbroken corner that could shatter into a million pieces.

"You can't change my mind. This isn't just about Hotspur, anyway. It's a punch in the goolies for the fiking Birdies, too."

Buck said nothing.

Tiny Doom held out the baby to Buck, feeling like she was ripping out a piece of her own soul. "Dare, win, or disappear. Ayah?"

"Ayah, Azota," said Buck, taking the baby. Buck hefted the squirming weight, holding it high enough that the medals on her frock coat wouldn't scratch the infant's soft skin. Purple faced, the baby rooted against Buck's dry cheek. "Dare, win, or disappear."

**Author's Note:**

> Ayah, making all the dates match up between the short stories and the novels and the website materials is impossible unless one is an egregor of the ninth order, which I am not. *waves hands*


End file.
